I understand why programs that show once a week would have a "previously on" segment. But it drives me nuts how History Channel always has to reprise the end of every segment at the beginning of the next one.

As for the history part of it, the Hitler mustache event and the dramatic scene of him being in the cross hairs, and the gun not fired, are probably both nonsense. It is obviously true that anyone who participated in WW1 might have been killed but it is a leap to the dramatic thing that was shown here.

Someone above mentioned that the Hitler/Stalin pact, which included the invasion and partition of Poland was somehow a bold statement "rarely even acknowledged." Only if one is reading grammar school history books, perhaps.

As for the history part of it, the Hitler mustache event and the dramatic scene of him being in the cross hairs, and the gun not fired, are probably both nonsense. It is obviously true that anyone who participated in WW1 might have been killed but it is a leap to the dramatic thing that was shown here.

Click to expand...

It was an open sight, no crosshairs. And while it probably didn't happen, there is some supporting evidence that it might have.

Someone above mentioned that the Hitler/Stalin pact, which included the invasion and partition of Poland was somehow a bold statement "rarely even acknowledged." Only if one is reading grammar school history books, perhaps.

Click to expand...

Talk about revisionism. Nobody called it a "bold statement". I said that it was one of the few things they got right and that it is rarely even acknowledged. Both true statements. It is in fact not all that well known. Most people would probably think that "Mission to Moscow" has an accurate portrayal of "Uncle Joe", if they even knew who he was. Of course, I must be wrong as you are obviously intimately familiar with high school and college history courses.

Overall I enjoyed the show, but when they got to D-Day and did not even mention Eisenhower's name, I became distracted by that and began to think about all the other stuff they left out. The end seemed very rushed.

I'm no historian either and to tell the truth, I didn't personally notice those 2 particular errors. I did notice the ones I mentioned.

I might be more willing to overlook the technical errors (even though they do interfere with my immersion in the show) if it weren't for the obvious factual errors. After all, this is the History channel. Shouldn't I expect a bit closer adherence to actual history? At least on a program in this format. I do not expect it on "Vikings".

One other thing. They completely left out the Spanish Civil War. The only reason for this that I can see is that it does not fit into their narrative that the extent of Germany's rearmament and the capabilities of their equipment was a complete secret until the invasion of Poland.

Click to expand...

To me, that's the one glaring omission, because it was important as a testing ground for some technology, but also in building alliances and spy networks (and adding another Fascist state).

Did they mention ALL planes were fighters? I missed where they said that. I did notice a General wearing 5 starts in Ep 2. I thought it was McArthur though, who I don't believe was a 5 star at that point either.

Also, no mention of Lend Lease, which was important in helping the UK stay alive until we sent troops and equipment after Dec. 7th, 1941

Let me get this straight. You have no problem with the glaring technical and factual errors but it irks you that the characters are all speaking English in a production intended for English speakers? You want them to speak in whatever language the person being represented would have spoken in with the concomitant open English captions?

They went to all the trouble and expense(?) to get real people to contribute to this, presumably to add some gravitas, and then, IMHO, threw it all away with these stupid errors. I wonder what John McCain, Colin Powell, Stanley McChrystal, et al. think of the finished product.

As I intimated in my initial post in this thread, do not take anything you "learn" from this program to heart until you have independently verified it using a source you trust.

Click to expand...

The things is, this show is not meant for anyone with any type of factual understanding of the two World Wars. To me it's meant for the casual viewer to give them some understanding of the hows and whys. From the first two episodes I've seen, I think they do a pretty good job at that. I don't think it matters to the casual observer if Marshall wore 1 or 5 stars, if there were other bombing campaigns (since the Battle of Britain was the key campaign along with the sea battles that kept the UK alive until the US could join the war). Or if they called all the planes fighters, or whatever. They got the gist of what happened and laid it out so that a novice could understand. The History Channel and it's sister channels have had MANY more detailed programs about these wars, including the excellent series "The First World War", and "World at War".

As I said, to me it's a dramatization. So no, I don't have any problems with the glaring factual errors. The dramatizations in this show are no better than other cheesy docudramas that have preceded it. I took these segments as nothing more than artistic flourishes to what may or may not have occurred in real life. My big problem with any dramatization is to see non-English speakers speaking English to each other instead of their native language. That's what takes me out of what's being dramatized.

No argument here.

Click to expand...

I don't mind the English speak...most people don't want to spend hours reading subtitle and listen to people speaking 3 or 4 different foreign languages. I know people who won't watch ANYTHING with subtitles.

My problem is less with the errors and more with the overall strategy of the producers. It feels like History Lite. More taste, less filling. Just one of many examples: we get 20 or 30 seconds of Patton supposedly being shot at during target practice (useless info even if true) while a scene with Churchill talks about him gaining his reputation back "after Gallipoli". Except that Gallipoli was never covered. How can you discuss WWI without talking about Gallipoli? It's even made for tv drama with the charge of the Light Brigade. We get a ton of coverage of MacArthur in WWI but I never heard Black Jack Pershing mentioned even once. He led the US forces and is the highest ranking military officer in our history (even ahead of George Washington and US Grant).

I gave up after the first episode so I can't comment on the remaining ones.

Click to expand...

It was meant to be history lite. Nobody with a REAL knowledge of the time this covered is going to learn much new.

The things is, this show is not meant for anyone with any type of factual understanding of the two World Wars. To me it's meant for the casual viewer to give them some understanding of the hows and whys. From the first two episodes I've seen, I think they do a pretty good job at that. I don't think it matters to the casual observer if Marshall wore 1 or 5 stars, if there were other bombing campaigns (since the Battle of Britain was the key campaign along with the sea battles that kept the UK alive until the US could join the war). Or if they called all the planes fighters, or whatever. They got the gist of what happened and laid it out so that a novice could understand. The History Channel and it's sister channels have had MANY more detailed programs about these wars, including the excellent series "The First World War", and "World at War".

Click to expand...

They could have accomplished that w/o all of the misrepresentation and out and out falsehoods. All they actually accomplished was presenting a completely distorted version of events. The fact that you think they covered the Battle of Britain proves that. It did not begin with the London blitz. Point of fact, it pretty much ended it.

They could have accomplished that w/o all of the misrepresentation and out and out falsehoods. All they actually accomplished was presenting a completely distorted version of events. The fact that you think they covered the Battle of Britain proves that. It did not begin with the London blitz. Point of fact, it pretty much ended it.

Click to expand...

Did I even say that? I never said it began or ended, and in fact mentioned that part of the Battle of Britain was at sea. While I agree that they've misrepresented some things. I think or hope at least that a series like this will pique someone's interest in the topic rather than a full education. I think they got the gist of the war's causes and effects. Sure they could have been a lot more accurate, I agree. But it's not a total misrepresentation of what happened. It's not like they had Germany attacking the UK with land troops or that it was over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor They took a lot of leaps (as mentioned in the article Bob posted about the Communists revolution in Russia). My son watched this, not knowing much about the era and now wants to know more. I think, for me, that's what I hope comes out of this for a lot of younger people.

anyone who takes issues with this series must not have kids in school. This was much more accurate than any of the **** my kids learn there.

Click to expand...

This exactly. And in fact, by the time they get to this era in school, it usually late in the school year and the kids (and probably the teachers) have totally lost interest. To me it's the most fascinating era in history and it directly shapes so much of the world we live in. Much more than what happened in Rome 2000 years ago.

Did I even say that? I never said it began or ended, and in fact mentioned that part of the Battle of Britain was at sea. While I agree that they've misrepresented some things.

Click to expand...

Here's what you actually wrote:

I don't think it matters to the casual observer if Marshall wore 1 or 5 stars, if there were other bombing campaigns (since the Battle of Britain was the key campaign along with the sea battles that kept the UK alive until the US could join the war).

Click to expand...

You clearly thought that the "Battle of Britain" was covered and did not say that "the sea battles" were part of it. On a related note, to what "sea battles" are you referring?

Here's what you actually wrote:You clearly thought that the "Battle of Britain" was covered and did not say that "the sea battles" were part of it. On a related note, to what "sea battles" are you referring?

Click to expand...

It's great that we finally have someone on this forum who can help us better understand history and tell us what we really meant after we say something.

I was reprimanded for using the word Bold when the adjective was more properly Big. My apologies. I also thought that people who studied western history would probably have been aware of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its implications, but I am now aware that it was indeed a "little known fact." I'm always happy to learn something.

According to this program , all of the planes that attacked Pearl Harbor were fighters as were all of the Luftwaffe planes shot down by the RAF.

Click to expand...

I don't recall that they said ALL the planes were fighters. Perhaps they said there were xxx amount of fighters shot down, but that doesn't mean that it was ALL the planes shot down, much like saying a battle had 10,000 killed doesn't include ALL the casualties. Now if you can say that the number they quoted (which I don't remember) was the actual number of ALL planes, then they screwed up.

There were 7 people promoted to 5-star rank in WWII, all in December of 1944. The first was Leahy on the 15th and the last was Arnold on the 21st.

Click to expand...

Yep, that's what I thought. Of course, it's possible that the 5 star general they showed was promoted BEFORE WWII not IN WWII (meaning he was already a 5 star before the war started), but that was not the case for the generals they showed.

Again, it's minor points to the story they were telling. I think it was MUCH more egregious that they didn't mention Lend Lease or the Spanish Civil War than what were probably little more than script errors that only those familiar with those stats would know and care about. Find me a documentary about WWII and you'll find some inaccuracies. It's far from a rewrite of history.

It's great that we finally have someone on this forum who can help us better understand history and tell us what we really meant after we say something.

I was reprimanded for using the word Bold when the adjective was more properly Big. My apologies. I also thought that people who studied western history would probably have been aware of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its implications, but I am now aware that it was indeed a "little known fact." I'm always happy to learn something.

Harry Turtledove is a fun read. Thank for bringing him up.

Click to expand...

I always love how people tell me what I really meant

The German-Russian pact is about as important a point as you can make about WWII. I don't think I've read or watched a history of WWII that DIDN'T mention it.

It's great that we finally have someone on this forum who can help us better understand history and tell us what we really meant after we say something.

Click to expand...

You mean like you? "Bold", below modified to "Big", neither of which is even close to an accurate description of what I wrote. Are you perhaps auditioning for a job as a writer for the "History" channel?

What you seem to want me to do is assume that people meant something other than what they actually wrote.

I was reprimanded for using the word Bold when the adjective was more properly Big. My apologies. I also thought that people who studied western history would probably have been aware of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its implications, but I am now aware that it was indeed a "little known fact." I'm always happy to learn something

Click to expand...

There's a huge difference between "people who studied western history" and people whose only knowledge was gleaned from an elementary school textbook. For the most part, even if they know about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, they only know about the public part - the non-agression provision. And even if they know about the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland, they think it was in reaction to the German invasion and was done merely to defend the Poles against the Fascist invaders.

On that we can agree. I enjoy a lot of AH, I just don't expect to see it on the "History" channel.

A good friend of mine has written a couple of AH novels, "Moon of Ice" and "Anarquia", the latter co-written by J. Kent Hastings. One of the premises of "Moon of Ice" was that the Germans developed and used the atomic bomb. A reviewer objected on the grounds that the Germans didn't develop an atomic bomb, apparently not understanding the concept of "alternate" history.